Gauden's blog

Literature-Map - The tourist map of literature

I don't know how many people will still keep checking the blogs here but my sister sent me a great link to find authors. Literature-Map takes an author and finds other authors that are similar in writing, genre, theme and has fast become the knew way I'm looking out for new books to read. Some of the names that pop up are a bit odd (when I typed in Stephen King the closest to him was J.R. Tolkien and way out in left field was Jane Austen and William Shakespeare)but otherwise I think it's a great find.
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Alternate

The pictures from the "I found a camera in the woods" were more than just a bit eerie. As I scrolled through them I had a feeling that the further I scrolled down the more chances something scary was going to pop up. Well, nothing popped up persay but I did see something vaguely human-shaped in the fog some times. The fifth picture from the top sports the outline of some humanoid shape near the lower right amongst the tree-line. At first I didn't catch it but with a second glance I saw it and it made me jump. After that I scrutinized each photo, looking for another shape.
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Mc-Everything

McVideogame
I don't know if anyone else did or not but I took the time and went through the tutorial and before I even started the game I just felt absolutely horrible the more and more I read. The game fools you with its bright colors and cartoon-like characters but when you start reading the instructions and the bitterly sarcastic humor behind what it's saying... well I didn't want to play at all.
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What Insomniacs dreams of

Game, game, game left the largest impression on me in that it reminded me of a director that I love very much, Wes Anderson. He's done such gems as The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Royal Tenenbaums. Game, game, game also reminded me of the movie The Science of Sleep directed by Michel Gondry.
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The blind leading the blind

As my header proclaimes I felt as if I was playing blind with Galatea and Photopia. I was constantly writing myself little reminders as to what direction I had been and where I was going and what was in my inventory so I wouldn't have to keep checking it.

Without any sort of visual aid I felt lost more than half the time. It felt like I had no reference point that was clear.
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English as a program

I thought it would be fun to post a bit of the "conversation" I had with Eliza and the responses. I went in purposefully read to confuse the system as much as I could but Eliza is a tricky one.

E: Hello.
How do you do. Please state your problem.
Me: I'm tired.
E: Is it because you are tired that you came to me ?
Me: No.
E: Are you saying no just to be negative?
Me: Of course not.
E: I'm not sure I understand you fully.
Me: I'm sure you don't.
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Interacting with interactive text

With the technology that we possess now I believe that the ability to interact with text and all variations of media is the most we can.
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Categorization

In class we were trying to classify reality shows into categories of things such as challenges, monetary and so forth. And it was rather difficult to because most of the reality shows out there are looking for one person (or team on occassion) to outlast all the others and essentially "win".

However what really catches my attention about reality shows is how some of them are clearly disgusting and the producers are just looking for a fresh face that'll receive their fifteen minutes of fame and then burn out... and others are a bit more discrete.
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Slightly Relevant

If you have 55 minutes and change to spare then I believe watching another one of Dr. Michael Wesch's videos, An anthropological introduction to YouTube, is well worth your time. Dr. Wesch was also the creator of the video The Machine is Us/ing Us. At first I was a bit reluctant to watch the video because of its length but it was really engaging.
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Saussure in Avatars of Story

Ferdinand de Saussure was mentioned in the first chapter of Avatars of Story and while he is not a favorite theologist/critic of mine, he does have a very interesting essay on linguistics.

The essay, Course in Gerneal Linguistics, is not an easy text to summarize but I usually bare in mind that Saussure does not separate linguistics from semiotics. In fact, what most annoyed me about the text was that Saussure was using language to disect and understand language which, understandably, defeats the purpose.
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A Selection of Color

What fascinates me most about Little Nemo but most especially McCay is the use of color. I've noted this before in a different blog but when it comes to comics, my attention span goes out the window because all I can do is go, "Ooh, shiny," or something to that affect. Half the time it feels like there's just too much to take in and I've had to teach myself while reading Little Nemo to slow down and reread things several times. And by several I don't mean just two or three times.
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No One

While reading the first few pages of Little Nemo I couldn't help but maintain the attention span of a small child. Every frame, to me, was infused with so much color and detail that it was hard to read the words. I had to look at the page and then read the captions before, sometimes, looking over it a third time. Reading comics, if anything, is a very time consuming task. Not only do you have to focus on the dialogue (and in this instance, the captions as well) but you also have to simultaneously let your eye wander over every detail of the pictures.
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Donald Duck the Boy Scout

I'm not much for comic books and it's mostly because of the dialogue. Vacation Time, although, gave me a couple of giggles with some of its more dated sayings such as, "A land-going fish! I don't savvy!" (pg 8). And of course there is my favorite phrase of, "Simmer down..." which for viewers of Nickelodeon (while it was still decent) who loved Stick Stickly like I did, there was that amazing reference. Then again, depending on the comics date, it could be in reference to the Wailing Wailers which, Simmer Down, was their first single or even the Bob Marley song. Take your pick.
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Passing

Passage was interesting to say the least and quite honestly I, like a couple of others have said, was looking for some deeper meaning. It took me almost to the end of the game to realize that my two people were aging. I actually gasped when the woman died and after that I was keyed in to the music, waiting for something else to happen. Mostly I moved my two players around, up, down, around the blockades or rocks or whatever they were and I focused on the background because it kept changing.
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